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(Mt 13:33)

Explained by Robert Ferrell www.Scriptural-Truth.comIn Matthew 13:33 Jesus relates this parable to His disciples:

...The Kingdom of Heaven is like unto leaven, which a woman

took, and hid in three measures of meal, till the whole was

leavened. When we break this one down, we realize that this

woman is in the process of making some kind of meal or bread.

She has to reach into a jar three times to get the proper amount

of meal--a three step process. There is also leaven added to it,

which we can interpret as doctrine, since in Matthew 16:12Jesus' disciples realize that Jesus bade them (the disciples) not

to beware of the leaven of bread, but the doctrine of the

Pharisees and Saducees.

Now the doctrine that they taught would have been their

interpretation of the Scriptures. So if their doctrine is to their

Scriptures is what leaven is to bread, then the meal is here

symbolic of the Scriptures. If we then rephrase the parable withthese changes it becomes: The Kingdom of Heaven is like unto

doctrine which a woman took, and hid in three measures of

Scripture, till the whole Scripture was full of (good) doctrine.

The next thing to realize is that since the leaven was hidden by

her in the meal, then the doctrine of the kingdom is hidden in theScriptures. Clearly there is a hidden doctrine, which will come

in three dispensations, the element of time in this parable.

If the first dispensation of the Scriptures was what we now

refer to as the Old Testament, and the second dispensation of the

Scriptures was the New Testament, then what would the third

dispensation be? It doesnt make sense for this third

dispensation to be in the future, as if to say there will be fresh

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Scripture for a new era. The woman had to wait for the whole

lump to leaven. In other words we in the future would receive a

fresh dispensation of old Scripture. What makes the most sense

in this context is the apocrypha, since it was written long ago,

and all that would be really novel about it would be the changein status it would receive as a result of a shift in doctrine. What

is needed is merely for the leaven to work its way through the

whole lump.

The final question is: what does the woman represent. She

was the one who put the leaven into the lump. So the real

question is : who puts the inspiration into the Scriptures? Theanswer to this question is found in 2 Peter 1:21: For the

prophecy came not in old time by the will of man: but holy men

of God spake as they were moved by the Holy Ghost. This

makes sense when it is understood that Jesus was a Jew who

spoke Aramaic. In Hebrew, the word spirit is feminine.

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